Remember the picture you took of the chain guides? Dig it back out and use it to bolt the 3 static guides onto the block. Then you can put the main chain around the intake adjusters, water pump, & crank sprocket. The crankshaft may have rotated a tiny bit, but you can put the old sprocket back on and rotate a tiny bit with a large pair of channel lock pliers until the dot is back to the 4 o’clock position.
These are pics of all the dots lining up with their respective colored links. Pink link to rear intake cam, gold link to front intake cam, crank dot
in between the bottom two gold links
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Once all the dots are lined up, it’s important that as much slack as possible is in the section where the tensioner is. Otherwise the camshaft timing will be off, check engine light will probably light up, and engine may not run well. Or worse… Once the chain is oriented correctly, put the tensioner guide onto its dowel then bolt the main tensioner to the block. Double check your double checking. Once you’re confident that all the marks line up, the cam holding plates fit onto the top of the cams and are resting against the heads, & the slack of the chain is in the correct position
then you can pull the pin on the main tensioner. If there is a difficult part to this job, this is it. But all you need to do is be careful and double check each step in the cam timing assembly and alignment process.
Next: the last step in the timing process is re-installing the cam adjuster oil line. The bolts that secure this are the bolts that also secure the camshaft bearing caps so they need to be torqued properly, which is approximately 8 ft/lbs. Ford lists a range that can be applied to the bolt so I chose something in the upper end of that range.
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Congratulations, you’ve gotten the engine set to its base timing. But you’re definitely not done yet. Not even close…
